Broderick: Hall completes snub of 1984 Tigers

Former Detroit Tigers shortstop and manager Alan Trammell is one of 10 in the inaugural Michigan Baseball Hall of Fame class that will be inducted Thursday at Cooley Law School Stadium.(Photo: Associated Press)

It was just a bit more than 30 years ago that we all thought several of the 1984 Detroit Tigers would be a lock to be in the Hall of Fame.

And now, they will all be locked out of the Cooperstown museum.

Alan Trammell was the last hope and on Wednesday, for the 15th and final time, he failed to get enough votes to earn induction in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

They say baseball is one of the few games that is timeless. That is not only because we hold the greats of the game up and compare them to others over the span of all time, but also because it has no clock. The game continues until the final out, no matter how long it takes.

But there is time associated with getting into the Hall of Fame. Currently, that number is 15 years. And Hall of Fame-worthy players have 15 years to gain enough votes to get into Cooperstown.

Trammell's 15 years are now up and this time around he only earned 40.9 percent of the vote. As Trammell talked Wednesday about not being concerned with being snubbed, he followed in the footsteps of Tigers greats Jack Morris and Lou Whitaker, and near-greats Kirk Gibson and Lance Parrish, as members of that historic 1984 Detroit team that seemed, at the time, to have some of the best players of all time on the roster.

That's the feeling we all had when that team was going 35-5 and rolling toward the 1984 World Championship. Surely we were watching future Hall of Famers, we said, as we watched them dominate Major League Baseball over that magic summer.

And now, the feeling is disappointment.

Could it be possible that not one of the players on what is considered among the best teams of all time in baseball will be in the Hall of Fame? There is some solace that the manager of that team, Sparky Anderson, is already in the Hall. However, it is believed he earned most of his traction on his travels to greatness from his time with the Cincinnati Reds.

As for the Detroit Tigers on the diamond in 1984, they will not be honored in the same way.

Whitaker and Trammell were synonymous with excellence when it came to the middle of the infield. The duo together is considered the best combination of shortstop and second baseman ever to play the game, because of their consistency and longevity. Yet, individually they didn't find a place in the Hall.

It is puzzling we are at this place today, with all of those Tigers out of chances to be voted in.

Has it been about championships? That Tigers group only won the World Series title once. Only made the playoffs twice.

But individuals on that team won multiple times.

Morris went on to win World Series titles with other teams, lending his Hall-of-Fame talent to other clubs. Gibson did also, with one of the greatest swings in baseball history.

Maybe it has been about numbers. Thanks to the steroids era, numbers have been inflated over the past two decades and stats from the 1980s don't measure up.

But still, when compared to past shortstops and second basemen already in the Hall of Fame, Trammell and Whitaker more than measure up and surpass a high percentage of them.

And, Morris was the best pitcher in the 1980s when it comes to wins. This begs the argument that some Hall of Fame voters have as to comparing players to those from their own era in terms of dominance.

I could go on, and I have. Over the past several years, each time one of these Tiger greats from 1984 has been left out of the Hall of Fame, I have lamented the fact that the baseball writers are making a mistake.

As it turns out, this probably will be the last time I will be saying that in this space.

With the votes counted this time around, Trammell, Whitaker, Morris and any other 1984 Detroit Tiger had their time, their number of years to get into the Hall of Fame, and they fell short.

But fans of that 1984 Detroit Tigers team know the greatness of those players and our memories of them are timeless. And we don't need to step into the doors of a museum in Cooperstown to tell us that.